(May 10, 2014 at 8:46 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: This post lends further support to Esquilax' contention that people who don't accept evolution do so because they don't understand what evolution is. This Q'rannic dimwit has equated 'evolution' with 'chance' at least a dozen times in his dishonest, misleading, and wronger-than-wrong post.

For the 12th skajillionth time: Evolution is NOT a random process.

Boru

Hmmmm.

12 skajillion is a lot of times. But it still seems to me that mutation is random, at least as far as we are concerned.

However mutation filtered through natural selection - be it sexual, environmental, or whatever - is the very opposite of random.

(May 10, 2014 at 9:04 pm)Stimbo Wrote: However mutation filtered through natural selection - be it sexual, environmental, or whatever - is the very opposite of random.

I'm not sure what you mean by random. If you mean the universe is deterministic, and nothing is random, then I'd have to disagree that this is known or knowable-- and that some aspects of QM make this idea seem unlikely to be true.

I'd really like to know in what specific sense evolution is seen as not being random, without first requiring the acceptance of absolute physical determinism as a confirmed aspect of reality.

Quote:I'd really like to know in what specific sense evolution is seen as not being random, without first requiring the acceptance of absolute physical determinism as a confirmed aspect of reality.

Evolution, in the sense of descent with modification, is a non-random process whereby beneficial traits are selected for. This is why camels have third eyelids and elephants don't have thin legs and bird claws. In other words, evolutionary traits are manifestly NOT selected for randomly, any more than you would install a fuel injection system on a bird feeder, just because one happened to be available.

Mutation is indeed random, but mutation, in and of itself, is not evolution.

Boru

"We know information comes only from intelligent source. When we see coded information in a DNA, the most logical thing to conclude, that too, has an intelligent source."


No, we don't know that. You do not know what information is and you misquote others to support your nonsense.

(May 10, 2014 at 10:14 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Evolution, in the sense of descent with modification, is a non-random process whereby beneficial traits are selected for.

Where a beneficial trait is defined as one causing an increased likelihood of reproduction of that trait. Which results in that trait being more persistent, prevalent and available for observation. In any case, the universe doesn't care what chemicals react or how. They just do. The observed uniformity of how atoms bond isn't indicative of an intelligent, personal God.

(May 10, 2014 at 11:29 pm)JuliaL Wrote:

(May 10, 2014 at 10:14 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Evolution, in the sense of descent with modification, is a non-random process whereby beneficial traits are selected for.

Where a beneficial trait is defined as one causing an increased likelihood of reproduction of that trait. Which results in that trait being more persistent, prevalent and available for observation. In any case, the universe doesn't care what chemicals react or how. They just do. The observed uniformity of how atoms bond isn't indicative of an intelligent, personal God.

No argument.

Boru

Quote:The problem with the abstract objects is that they are causally effete, meaning, they cannot cause anything.

I don't know what you mean by an abstract object. If you mean one without intelligence then you are certainly wrong - unless you believe that Uranium 235 (for example) is intelligent.

Take a lump of U235 (stay under about 65 kilos) and leave it on the shelf.

Come back in 4 billion years.

There should be about half the U235 you started with, some thorium, some radon gas and various other elements culminating in lead.

So U235 "causes" a whole host of different elements.

Thanks for playing.